Gardens are like good old friends. They can comfort, delight, reconcile, inspire. “Our garden is a place where we can recharge our batteries – at any time of the year,” say Peter Petermeir and Christine Zahrhuber from Eferding.
Her “Mediterranean Paradise” was declared the winning garden at the end of the OÖN garden selection in the Promenaden Galerien Linz. 142 Upper Austrians applied with their green pearls, and a jury headed by organic gardener Karl Ploberger selected the winners.
The “turtle garden” in St. Peter am Hart (Braunau district) by Janine and Christian Denk came in second. In addition to 250 turtles, there are also lots of raised beds with vegetables and salad – and countless fruit trees. The biology and chemistry teacher provides her family with the food she has grown herself – and of course her seven-month-old daughter.
Gerlinde and Erich Schornsteiner from Oberneukirchen came third with their “Mühlviertler Rosengarten”, in which 200 different roses bloom. The couple has loved the flowers for many years because of “their wonderful colours, shapes and scents”, as Gerlinde Schornsteiner explains. “And besides, my wife deserves a rose every day,” Erich Schornsteiner paid his wife a magical compliment on stage. Granddaughter Luise, who accompanied grandma and grandpa to Linz, was also happy. Karl Ploberger wanted to know what the 12-year-old would like to do in her grandparents’ garden. Her answer: “I just love to look at him. And I like to nibble on everything that grows there.”
200,000 clicks on the Internet
The special prize for small paradises went to Marianne Wagner’s “Versatile Balcony” on the Auberg in Linz-Urfahr. Life outside takes place on ten square meters in summer: coffee parties, barbecues and relaxing reading hours among petunias, geraniums, lovage, chives and lemon balm are among the favorite hobbies of the people from Linz.
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The readers of OÖ Nachrichten voted 200,000 times for their favorite gardens – that’s why there is always a “public favourite” when it comes to choosing a garden. The married couple Sabine and Lukas Sotz from Fraham landed in first place in the readers’ favor with exactly 13,625 public votes with their garden “Auszeit”.
The two only started gardening a few years ago – and now they can’t stop doing it. “There’s always something to do,” says Sabine Sotz, who likes to process the harvested fruit into jams, teas and syrups. By the way, this year the couple went on vacation abroad for the first time in years. “And once again we realized that there is nowhere as beautiful as at home in the garden.” “I know that!” said organic gardener Karl Ploberger, who said that the deckchair in the garden of an enthusiastic hobby gardener is an almost superfluous utensil. “Because as soon as you sit down, you see what needs to be done again. Sowing, watering, cutting, experiencing miracles – much better than lying down!”
Flowers of Bellaflora
After the award ceremony, the organic gardener gave a witty talk about the “most beautiful gardens” in the world – from Cornwall in England to the garden of the British Embassy in Paris and the Caribbean paradise in Guadeloupe.
At the end, the visitors were allowed to take home a flowerpot with chrysanthemums – sponsored by the company Bellaflora. The garden autumn will be a little bit nicer.
Source: Nachrichten
